lørdag den 15. juni 2013

Getting back into raiding, and a personal view on healing (in)equality.

Getting
back into raiding, and a personal view on healing equality.

I’ve
started to have some time again, and what better way to spend it than on
playing World of Warcraft and raiding? After going inactive/casual in Envy I transferred
my shaman back to “The Great Danes” on Auchindoun (This was the place which I
left in order to join Ensidia and thereafter Envy) and was helping/being a
burden whenever I had time to play and they was in a need of an extra healer
(who had no clue on any boss abilities).
This was quite refreshing in comparison with numerous alt runs (I still play my
alts, but it is when I choose to and not because we need 3-4 raids for
maximizing gear) and late night PTR testing so we know the bosses abilities and
so forth. Now, usually I like to prepare myself very well for an encounter, but
since I was rarely playing I haven’t bothered doing so up until now, and it did
remind me a little of the “old days” where you had to “learn by doing”. Like on
Dumuruu I managed to get kicked of the platform on my first try, and I was
laughing and enjoying myself just like my fellow raiders, who had been there
numerous times and was used to the mechanics.To put in other terms: After a 4-5 months break I had jolly good fun
while raiding!

However, due to my gear is vastly inferior to my fellow raiders, and because I
am a slacker and therefore still sits in ToES, HoF HM gear I am in no way
geared to progress with them on Lei Shen. So currently my raiding is limited to
clearing up till Lei Shen and spending my coins (Oh, what a surprise gold yet
again) and trying to leech some loot.

Sadly, this
has also revealed to me how badly resto shamans perform currently, and not only
because I lack quite a lot of gear, but simply because of how the different
classes work currently and how we get the shaft every freaking time (Okay, this
is mainly being the point after the “Big CD Buff Patch” where Druids, Monks
(WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BUFF REVIVIAL YOU MONGOLOIDS?) and Holy Priests
throughput CDs received a major buff.

Let us
start at the CD department where shamans was quite strong, and some would say
reigned supreme, but after 5.3 that is no longer the case. I do see the logic
and accept that Hymn and Tranq got buffed since they were healing for too
little, and they got a penalty which is “channeling”, however, buffing an
already potent class like Monk, I do simply not understand the logic. Revival
is now hitting 2,5-3+mil healingwith
one press and afterwards you can go back to Uplift spam, it is just idiotic and
not very well thought of. I assume the logic with not buffing Healing Tide
Totem was it was just a cast and we could stand and dish out healing while the
totem was healing, and I do understand that and accept it to some degree, but
because MW monks gets buffed which is basically the same (I would argue
stronger), I mean – C’mon !

Another
issue which has been with us since MoP Beta where it was pointed out numerous
times on forums is our freaking mastery. The mastery worked “okayish” in
Cataclysm due to the way encounters worked and in regards to HP levels, but now
it is a complete joke.

There is currently 2 very big issues with the mastery

1)Absorbs is far too strong since it effectively
grants you more EHP, and while that is great it does also reduce the capability
of HoT classes such as shaman / druid,but I would argue that we suffer more than the druid class simply
because of our mastery. When 20% of the dmg. Is absorbed our mastery doesn’t
really end up kicking in and is a “meh” stat.

2)The real elephant in the room is
that no other class has a mastery which devaluates itself. Let me explain:
Every time you heal a person who has taken damage you end up healing for less
and less simply because the mastery’s value is declining. Now this might not
sound as a big of a deal, but why are we having a mastery which is devaluating itself,
and is suffering quite badly under absorbs (which seems to fill more and more
in the game). Sure, it can work on some encounters such as Imperial Vizier “Left”
Zor’Lok” http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/8004/o9kn.jpg

Furthermore,
the tools which the shaman has at its disposal is also not sufficient for the
way raiding has evolved. Sure, HR, HST and HTT heals for a lot, but HR is
usually 60-80% OH (So much lost potential because it is never fully utilized)
and the two others is smart heals, and they work I will not argue with that. On
the other hand the old signature spell “Chain Heal” is becoming the biggest
issue with shamans. One issue is the jump range and another is that it just isn’t
healing for enough compared to e.g. Hymn, but also that if it only manages to
jump 3 times you would likely have been better off by casting a Healing Surge.

I rarely
use sources as e.g . raidbot (since quite a lot of the data is skewed due to
meterwhoring, but I think it gives a quite clear picture of how “well-designed
and balanced” the different healing classes perform currently.

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/#0000000000000000000000000000111111

I do not
play to be #1 on the meter, I play to kill the bosses, however, if my class is
unable to perform at somewhat equal terms it becomes an issue. Not because I
will get benched because you can work your way around a lot of things if you
got a decent healing core / alts, but simply because how freaking hard can it
be to somewhat equalize 6 classes within 10% of one another. I do not encourage
every class to be alike because that would ruin the games diversity, but
currently it is just mindboggling how badly balanced it is, but also how ill-equipped
the shamans toolkit is for this tier. This is mainly tied to Absorbs, HR and
the “usefulness” of Chain Heal (REDESIGN OR GIVE US SOME NEW SPELL).